Itemization is one of the most difficult systems to understand in League of Legends, due to the fact that it’s such an on the fly system that you need to adjust to from game to game where very few things remain the same. This guide is intended to help you understand situations and champions that can build these items well, and when you should look to build certain items, as well as items you should avoid building, so that you can have that extra edge over your opponents to win the game!

Critical Strike Mythics

AD Crit Mythic items are one of the more interesting classes of Mythics, due to the fact that all three items are pretty viable across a variety of characters. Some AD Carries generally have one best Mythic like Jhin or Samira, and have little reason to build the other two options, but many AD Carries have multiple options per game, and this section will help break down some decision making to make the choices easier for you:

Immortal Shieldbow

One of the biggest benefits of building this item compared to Kraken Slayer and Galeforce is that you can itemize into Vampiric Scepter early on in your lane. This provides you with additional sustain that allows you to take riskier trades in lanes or trades that might be initially disadvantageous, but over time will play into your favor as long as you are able to regain that health from your extra lifesteal.

The other big strength is the shield you gain when you go below 30% HP. The AD from the shield activation isn’t bad either, but it’s more of a cherry on top rather than a draw for the item. This passive shield allows you to take significant amounts of burst damage from an Assassin or a long range mage like a Viktor and stay in the fight for longer, and also can catch your opponents off guard when they calculate damage for all-ins, allowing you to turn the tides of battle in an instant.

Because of these two benefits, I highly recommend building Shieldbow when you don’t need the mobility from Galeforce to dodge key abilities or the extra damage from Kraken Slayer. Champions like Samira, Kalista, and to a lesser extent Aphelios all greatly benefit from this item as they want to fight extended fights and need the extra defense to either survive the enemy team diving them or if they get deep into enemy lines to impact the fights.

Galeforce

Galeforce is one of the more fun items to use within the game, and at the moment is in a fairly decent spot. It was initially undervalued when it first released out, players quickly realized how valuable having a repositioning tool could be, especially on immobile AD Carries and began to highly regard the item.

However, it is worth noting the drawbacks of Galeforce and understanding the logic behind building it. It lacks the extra damage granted from Kraken Slayer, and it also does not have the same sustaining and protection power against burst that Shieldbow holds either. While the movement speed is a nice benefit to the item, the main reason you should look to build Galeforce is for that active dash. It opens you up to new playmaking potential that would otherwise not be available to you, and allows you to play fights easier if the enemy has only a critical spell or two that they must land on you that you can dash out of with the item if you are ready for it.

That said, this is probably the most situational out of the three in my opinion due to its lower values on the damage and sustain side compared to its counterparts, save for a few champions like Jhin and Xayah who can use the dash offensively. For example, Jhin can use Galeforce into his fourth shot for incredible and surprising burst damage, and Xayah can reposition herself for better feather pulls with Galeforce.

Kraken Slayer

If one has been paying attention to the ongoing tournament MSI, one will note the high presence Kraken Slayer has been seeing on a lot of the Crit Marksman in the bottom lane. Kraken Slayer provides a high amount of burst damage with the third shot true damage, which is great for dealing with heavy frontline compositions, and even against less tanky compositions, the true damage can still be quite nice to have to melt those lower health pools.

Another big benefit of Kraken Slayer compared to its counterparts is the Mythic passive, which grants 10% bonus attack speed for every Legendary item you have completed. This is huge for most AD Carries because most of those champions can make great use of the passive and when combined with items such as Phantom Dancer, it allows for you to have incredibly high consistent damage because you are activating the true damage passive very often.

Due to these factors, Kraken Slayer is generally the best “default” option for most Marksman champions at the moment. It’s easier to recommend champions to avoid building this on rather than champions you should build it on. Ezreal, Jhin, Samira who are more ability based and don’t want to auto attack frequently or simply value the sustain of an item like Shieldbow will want to stay away from Kraken Slayer.

Attack Speed Items

Phantom Dancer

Often paired with Kraken Slayer, Phantom Dancer is a really strong item and arguably the best Zeal item at the moment. This is due to two reasons; as mentioned previously, its synergy with Kraken Slayer allows you to get a high amount of auto attacks off if you get the full stacks on the passive of the item, which gives you a bonus 30% attack speed. The other reason is due to its defensive capabilities, which includes 7% bonus movement speed and an effect known as ghosting.

What is ghosting? It’s an effect that allows you to ignore unit collision and walk through enemy champions freely. This is really nice to have, especially as a champion like Kai’Sa who wants to get in close and try to get past the less important targets to reach her critical targets. This also allows you to more easily escape the clutches of divers and assassins, since you can freely move through them instead of having to walk around or getting stuck on their character models.

Of course, it’s also worth mentioning the ability to build two long swords, unlike Rapid Firecannon and Hurricane which are stuck with daggers for their components. This makes it especially nice for champions like Kai’Sa and Tristana who really like having a lot of AD to make their spells hit harder. Overall, I’d recommend this item a lot of the time if you’re building Kraken Slayer or need a defensive Zeal item against assassins or champions who dive in like Hecarim.

Rapid Firecannon

Functioning as a nice range extension tool, Rapid Firecannon is a Zeal item that works especially well versus longer range compositions. While it isn’t as popular compared to Phantom Dancer or Hurricane, it still functions rather well on champions like Jhin, Jinx, and Senna, due to their higher range capabilities (especially in the case of Senna, who has infinitely scaling attack range).

However, this item is not exclusive to high range characters, as this can be quite good on a champion like Kai’Sa as a cheap alternative if you opt into building The Collector, although I would only recommend this if you absolutely need the range, otherwise I think Phantom Dancer or Hurricane are the better options.

Runaan’s Hurricane

Hurricane is arguably the most interesting Zeal item available, due to some of the special interactions it has with certain carries like Jinx and Aphelios, whose damage goes up significantly versus lower range/heavy melee compositions and grants them incredible pushing power that is hard for any other AD Carry to match.

However, it is important to understand the concept of being effective against lower range and melee heavy compositions and why. If you’re against a composition that is something like a Jayce, Morgana, Lucian, Caitlyn, and a Karma, you won’t get very much use out of Hurricane due to the amount of range that team composition has, and would likely be better off with a Phantom Dancer or a Rapid Firecannon instead.

That said, Hurricane is a very effective item in the right spots, and is good for most AD Carries to build. A few exceptions to this are ability based Marksman such as Jhin, Ezreal, and Samira, as well as champions like Sivir and Miss Fortune who have large amounts of multi-target abilities in their kit, and do not need the extra splash from Hurricane.

Mortal Reminder

To be frank, this item isn’t worth it for you to build and should be generally avoided. The reasoning here is twofold; first, the spike you get for the investment you put into it is quite low compared to items such as Phantom Dancer, which has near identical statistics baseline, but unlike Phantom Dancer, Mortal Reminder does not provide similar defensive capabilities, nor does it provide the extra attack speed that Phantom Dancer grants.

Second, after the changes to Bramble Vest/Thornmail and the addition of Oblivion Orb, it is much easier for Grievous Wounds to be applied to the enemy team by your tanks and control mages while being built into better items than Mortal Reminder. Of course, this isn’t to say you should never ever build this item or ignore the enemy healing, but generally it’s better to ask your team to build those items so you can hit higher damage spiking items and not have to waste the gold investment on this item.

Guinsoo’s Rageblade

This item is OK is the best summary I can give. The issue is that on-hit builds aren’t that great compared to crit builds or other on-hit items in the game currently, although with the price reduction of the item after the most recent patch, it’s certainly a bit more eye-catching. Oftentimes though, you’ll want to prioritize items like Wit’s End, Kraken Slayer, and Hurricane on those champions since they offer better stats or defensiveness that are more attractive compared to this item.

Still, Rageblade isn’t terrible. I’d recommend this on champions like Kog’Maw and Kalista more than anyone else, but in general I’d probably give this a pass. It’s also alright on Senna even after the nerfs to her interaction with the item, but usually players will just build the Rageknife component and not finish the item until later.

Armor Penetration/Lethality Items & Mythics

Since Lethality Mythics aren’t super popular outside of a few champions who use each one, I’ve decided to combine them along with the other armor penetration and lethality items into one section, and these rundowns will be a bit shorter. With that said, let’s take a look:

Eclipse

This item is actually pretty nice for AD Carries who want to build lethality, due to the passive 4% armor penetration you get for each Legendary item. It makes it surprisingly effective versus tanks despite being a lethality item, and combined with other items such as Lord Dominik’s Regards, you can actually do a hefty amount of damage to people who are building armor.

I would recommend this item on Senna if you want a lethality Mythic, and I would actually recommend this item on Jhin if you don’t need the Galeforce mobility and you’re against one to two tanks. It makes his fourth shot damage incredibly powerful against beefier opponents, and Jhin really likes the components - namely Serrated Dirk - in lane as well.

Duskblade of Draktharr

This item has been seeing some play on a few ability based AD Carries, namely Miss Fortune, Varus, and Ezreal. It’s pretty solid due to the ability haste granted from the components along with the Mythic passive, and the ability to reposition from the stealth activation is pretty valuable as well. Ezreal also really uses the extra damage and slow proc well due to the range of his Mystic Shot, which activates any on-hit effects, and the same logic applies to Miss Fortune’s Double Up. As for Varus, he really likes the item because it allows him to use Chains of Corruption more frequently, which allows him to make more picks and get incredible amounts of damage from his Piercing Arrow and Blight combination.

Outside of these champions however, I wouldn’t really recommend building Duskblade as it doesn’t provide extra combat stats that Prowler’s Claw and Eclipse do with their Mythic passives, and you can usually opt for a better lethality or AD Crit Mythic over this item.

Prowler’s Claw

Perhaps the strangest of the Mythics that have been popping up a bit recently on AD Carries - specifically Varus - this item is pretty nice on him specifically for a couple of reasons. The lethality he gets off the Mythic passive is decent, but isn’t anything huge to write home about. However, the active dash provides him with a unique safety against assassins and dive champions, because if you position yourself properly, you can Prowler’s Claw through them and into safety. It is pretty hard to do, but if it works well it’s a nice way to save Flash and allows you to do more damage to them afterwards.

Another small, cool trick you can do is you can Prowler’s Claw through minions and extend the range of Chain of Corruption, catching people off-guard and potentially netting yourself a kill. An example of this being done is in the clip below, and you see that I catch the enemy Ezreal off guard when I throw my ultimate out and he’s forced to waste Flash to survive.

Make sure to be careful when going for this type of play and that you are totally safe to go for it, because while it is quite flashy and could result in something good, if the enemy is able to respond or protect someone when you try to do this to them, you’ll be putting yourself in a bad spot and get yourself killed.

With that out of the way, let’s move onto the Legendary items.

The Collector

This item is ribbed on a lot, and I don’t think it’s entirely unjustified. It scales rather poorly compared to Lord Dominik’s Regards, and the execute passive is pretty negligible against most targets because it activates at such low health values that generally the target you are “collecting” would usually be dead without it anyway.

With that being said, I do think the biggest strength in the item lies not in the completed item, but rather the components of it. Champions who really want a lot of AD like Jhin, Kai’Sa, and Samira all really love this item because the components themselves provide really strong, cheap spikes in damage, and in the case of Kai’Sa, it gives her a quick path to evolving Icathian Rain, which is pretty big for her laning and mid-game burst damage with that ability.

With all that said, you should be cognizant of what the enemy is building when you are thinking about building The Collector. If they have several tanks or you are playing closer to a three item power spike in your game, it might be better to go for Lord Dominik’s Regards to give you the extra edge in fights against armor stacking teams. However, if you are fighting often early and need fast item spikes, The Collector may be the way to go.

Lord Dominik’s Regards

Although it saw a few minor nerfs in 11.7, Lord Dominik’s Regards is still a rather strong item due to its reliability on being stronger the longer a game goes, while sharing a price similar to The Collector. The item’s biggest downside is that the components don’t feel as good compared to The Collector but getting the Giant Slayer effect which grants bonus physical damage based on maximum health difference between you and your enemies, combined with the rune Cut Down, makes you incredibly potent at melting down tanks and high health stacking characters like Sett or Garen.

Almost every AD Carry can build this item, although there are a few exceptions here and there. Kog’Maw doesn’t need this item for example, due to the fact that he does percentage based magic damage with Bio-Arcane Barrage, as well as doing percentage resistance reduction on Caustic Spittle. Besides that exception however, you should look to build this if the game is going late or if the enemy has a lot of frontline that you need to burn through first.

Serpent’s Fang

I’ve seen this item recommended on AD Carries recently due to the Shield Reaver changes, and while the item is quite strong, I don’t think it’s quite there yet for being good on Marksman who are building crit. The reason for this being that while it is true that you are reducing the shields of the enemies, you are significantly delaying your Infinity Edge spike, which especially in solo queue it can be rare for games to go beyond three item completions for carry champions, which puts a lot of value on items like Infinity Edge.

That said, there is incredible value for it on champions who build lethality like Varus and Miss Fortune, since they have multi-target spells that can apply the debuff to several champions at once, and combined with the potential buffs upcoming in patch 11.11, it’s possible this item can only rise up in value for Marksman champions in the near future.

Misc. Items

In this section, I’ll be covering just a few additional items that I didn’t feel really slotted in any of the previous sections.

Essence Reaver

Despite the nerfs that reduced the AD value on the item and the increased gold value in 11.7, I still think Essence Reaver is a pretty solid item on spellcaster AD Carries who auto attack between their spells or their spells apply on-hit effects like Ezreal, Lucian, and Draven. The item’s mana regeneration makes it a pretty solid laning option as well, and allows you to more freely use your spells without draining your mana too hard. That said, I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone outside of the few champions mentioned above, as you can usually get better options for similar price points or cheaper.

Guardian Angel

In theory, this item should be great for any AD Carry - after all, a second life should be pretty overpowered. In actuality however, this item is generally a bait outside of a few dive AD Carries like Samira and Kai’Sa.

Why? Let me propose a hypothetical to you: If you are a Flashless Jinx who gets dove onto and your team has to retreat and you have Guardian Angel activated, what will happen to you when you have a bunch of enemies all standing around your revive with their spell rotations back up due to the revive timer? You probably won’t get anything done and just die again, and now you have to wait five minutes for your item to potentially be useful the next time around. Oftentimes your gold is simply better invested into other defensive options like Bloodthirster, Phantom Dancer, or even an item like Zhonya’s Hourglass depending on your champion.

Of course, this item isn’t totally useless and I still do build it on occasion, however that is only when I feel as if I have no other items offensively or defensively that I could build that would offer me anything of value. It does have some merit on those diving AD Carries I mentioned previously since you usually want to go in and burst someone, and Guardian Angel’s revive mechanic does play to that strength because it allows you to figure an escape plan out, but outside of that, I just simply think the item isn’t worth the gold.

Stormrazor

This item is almost good, and isn’t a bad option on a few champions such as Tristana and Caitlyn. The issue is that the attack speed on the item is really low, and because Phantom Dancer now gives 20 less AD but in exchange gives some movement speed and a lot more attack speed for a cheaper price, there’s just no real reason to opt into the more expensive Stormrazor. With that said, I would keep a close eye on this item and I think that if Riot puts any buffs on it in the near future, it may see a rise in play.

Conclusion

Itemization is just one of many factors within League of Legends, but it’s value cannot be understated. Proper itemization at times can help decide entire games, and hopefully this guide has helped you become more informed on what to build and why.

Best of luck on the Rift, and stay safe out there!